


Just hold my hand (it'll be all right)

by flywithturtles (greenet)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Accidental Relationship, Bisexual Character, Dating, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Implied Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Love Confessions, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Angst, Other pairings implied or mentioned, pure ridiculousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 06:31:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6227626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenet/pseuds/flywithturtles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Itami Karin confesses her crush on Ryuu on a perfectly ordinary Wednesday during lunch break. Ryuu immediately accepts. Itami is a third year, like him, although she’s in a different class, so Ryuu doesn’t know much about her. She has short black hair, which is cute, with a little green bow in, which is also cute, and seems a little nervous when she offers her letter to Ryuu with a bow, which is super cute. </p><p>“Yes!” he says, without even reading the letter, and she blushes cutely. </p><p>He tells Noya right away, of course, and Noya makes all the right noises of admiration and jealousy. </p><p>Ryuu beams his way though practice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just hold my hand (it'll be all right)

**Author's Note:**

> Brought on by rewatching the first season of Haikyuu!! and deciding that Tanaka really should get a girlfriend. ...or six. and a boyfriend or two. ...I may have gone a little overboard. 
> 
> The OCs names are very random.
> 
> Tsukki is a bit of a dick in this, but not a lot worse than in canon, I think. Rest assured that Yamaguchi will smack him when he goes too far.

Itami Karin confesses her crush on Ryuu on a perfectly ordinary Wednesday during lunch break. Ryuu immediately accepts. Itami is a third year, like him, although she’s in a different class, so Ryuu doesn’t know much about her. She has short black hair, which is cute, with a little green bow in, which is also cute, and seems a little nervous when she offers her letter to Ryuu with a bow, which is super cute. 

“Yes!” he says, without even reading the letter, and she blushes cutely. 

He tells Noya right away, of course, and Noya makes all the right noises of admiration and jealousy. 

Ryuu beams his way though practice. 

Ennoshita rolls his eyes a lot because Ennoshita has no sense of romance. 

“But what did she _say_?” Hinata asks. His eyes are wide and starry as he stares at Ryuu, waiting for Ryuu to regale them with the full details of his very first confession. Ryuu might have made all of them stay behind in the locker room as he tells them every single detail. Twice. Hinata has a romantic soul and is the only one who actually seems appropriately excited.

“That she’d seen me around, and she likes me, and thinks I’m handsome, and wants to get to know me better! Isn’t that just the cutest?” 

Tsukishima, who gets confessions stuffed in his locker and handed to him in droves for some reason Ryuu will never understand, looks bored. Yamaguchi grabs his sleeve and tries to sneak out, but Kinoshita blocks their exit. “If I have to listen to this, then so do you. Sit down and be appropriately amazed that somebody actually wants to date this idiot.” Kinoshita points. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi sit. 

Ryuu ignores this little interlude in favor of telling everybody about Itami’s cute little green bow. 

Saeko grins at him when she finds out and slaps him on the back. “Way to go, little bro! Your first girlfriend! It’s like it was only yesterday you were screaming about girls having cooties!” It’s _embarrassing_. He decides right away that Saeko is never meeting Itami. She’ll scare cute little Itami away, he just knows it. 

They date for three months, and it’s wonderful. 

Itami is short compared to Ryuu, and she fits perfectly under his arm. He likes holding her like that, it makes him feel big and strong. They sit together during lunch most days. Itami nervously offers him cute bentos every other day or so. She makes little rabbits and cats and turtles and he likes guessing which it’ll be.

She doesn’t know a lot about volleyball, but she comes to his games and cheers alongside Shimada and whoever else shows up. She does know a lot about Kpop however, so he ends up knowing all about cool guys in Kpop groups and their entertaining music videos. He’s not all that interested, but Saeko has slapped into his head that he needs to pay attention to his girlfriend’s interest, so he tries his best. Mostly it leaves him with a lingering fondness for bright hair colors. 

In the end they break up because it’s been two weeks and they haven’t even talked to each other. Ryuu needs to practice and Itami needs to study. It’s a mutual decision, but Ryuu is sad about it anyway. She’s the first girl he holds hands with, and his first kiss, and he’s always going to remember her fondly. 

Saeko pats him on the head and feeds him ice cream. She’s not the worst big sister in the world. 

 

Yagami Hana doesn’t confess so much as tells Ryuu that they’re going together to the bakery, and Ryuu says yes because he’s too confused to do anything else. She’s got long light brown hair falling down her back, a tiny cute nose with exactly three freckles on, and she’s very sure of herself. 

She breaks up with him when he forgets their two week anniversary.

Two days later she’s dating somebody else.

He remains confused by Yagami.

 

Sakurai, Shindo and Shiota confess together; a trio of blushing first years. He tells them he couldn’t possibly pick one of them, attempting to be suave and worldly, but that turns out to be fine — he can just date all of them together. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi both burst into laughter when he proudly mentions it during practice. Most of his fellow team mates don’t even have one girlfriend — the exceptions being Kageyama, who’s awkwardly dating the libero of the girls’ volleyball team, Ennoshita who has something going on he’s not talking about, and one of the first years who’s still dating his middle school sweetheart — so three is obviously something he can brag about.

He doesn’t understand why they’re laughing until three weeks later when he’s exhausted trying to be a good boyfriend to three girls at the same time. He tells them apart by their hairbands, which is probably terrible, but he never sees them alone, and they keep _giggling_. 

“I didn’t think having a girlfriend would be this much work,” he says. He’s flat on his back, breathing heavily after running laps. Itami wasn’t ever this much hard work. Itami was relaxing, in fact. He’d always felt calm around her. 

“ _A_ girlfriend probably isn’t,” Ennoshita says dryly. “What in the world made you think dating three was a good idea?”

Two of the first years look at each other, wide-eyed, then sigh in unison: “Tanaka-senpai is so cool!” Ryuu would be more gratified by it if he wasn’t busy trying to remember whether it was Shindo or Shiota who liked blue and whether Sakurai liked bunnies or hedgehogs. 

It’s not all bad; He likes the cute bentos they bring him, and he likes the way they cheer during practice games, and he likes being around cute girls who seem to like him. But it’s exhausting too, and he feels constantly guilty for not paying more attention to them individually. 

Luckily they break up with him, because he has no idea how to do it in a nice way himself. He’s a little stung when they start following some guy from the basketball team around, but mostly he’s relieved. 

 

During the break he has a long distance relationship going with a Nekoma girl he meets during a visit to play against Nekoma. She has pale grey Nekoma eyes, a short spiky black ponytail, amazing legs, and a weird hiccoughing laugh that makes him laugh as well. Aizawa plays on the girls soccer team at Nekoma and most of her texts to him are her complaining about the coach making her run drills all the time. 

They Skype a lot, mostly while doing homework, but sometimes they watch movies as well. And one time Aizawa tilts her head at him. 

“Hey, Tanaka, have you ever… you know?”

“What?” 

“Done it with a girl?”

He turns instantly red. He shakes his head mutely. 

“D’you wanna?” Aizawa is a little red as well. “I mean. You know. Like this?” She gestures towards her screen. 

Ryuu absolutely wants to. 

It’s awkward, and amazing, and at one point Aizawa starts laughing and that sets Ryuu off as well. He comes like that, giggling helplessly, watching the way Aizawa rubs her thumb over her nipple and bites her lip when she’s coming too. 

He holds his hand up when she demands to see. “You too,” he says. 

“I don’t think you can tell,” Aizawa grins, but she holds up her hand too. He thinks he can see it glisten with her wetness, and says as much. “I suppose,” she says and brings her hand up to her mouth and licks it. Ryuu moans at the sight, because that’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen, and Aizawa laughs again. 

They do it a couple more times like this, but in person the most they do is kiss. That’s nice too. 

He likes her a lot, probably more than any of the other girls he’s dated, but they meet up so infrequently that in the end the romance sputters out and it turns into a friendship, the first he’s had with a girl since middle school.

To his complete bafflement when school starts up again he seems to have acquired a reputation as a womanizer. It’s the first time he’s ever seen Noya and Tsukishima hug. They’re also laughing so hard they’re crying and the hugging is mainly so they can stay on their feet instead of collapse in a heap on the floor. 

“I am wounded to the very core of my being by your callous betrayal!” he shouts. That makes Yamaguchi start sniggering as swell, while Ennoshita nods in approval, recognizing the line from one of his Yakuza scripts. Ryuu always ends up playing Yakuza in Ennoshita’s action movies, usually alongside a sighing Narita and a very excited Nishinoya. It’s pretty cool. He’s sent Aizawa links to the clips on youtube and she’d texted him back advice on how to get the blood looking more realistic. Ennoshita had been very grateful when he’d passed it on. 

Aizawa is great. His team mates, however, are assholes. 

 

For a couple of weeks as school starts up again, groups of girls keep coming up to him, shoving one girl ahead of them. She will blushingly confess her interest in him, he’ll thank her, and turn her down as gently and smoothly as he can, because this is _weird_. It becomes a lot easier after he asks Ennoshita to write him a script though.

 

Obata Nagisa is an accident. He finds Nagisa’s confession letter in his shoe locker, and it’s sweet and it seems like the writer actually knows him a little. It’s not like the weird group-of-girls confessions, and he misses having a girlfriend, so he’s hoping that maybe Nagisa is a little like Aizawa, and maybe a little like Itami, so he’s already made up his mind to say yes. 

He says yes as he walks around the corner, before he sees that the Nagisa waiting for him _is_ cute, but he’s also a boy. He really needs to think before he talks, but he can’t take it back, not after seeing how happy it makes Nagisa. Nagisa has short messy dark red hair, studs in his ears, and worried eyes that reminds Ryuu a little of Asahi. 

“This is the best day ever,” Tsukishima says, staring in wonder once Ryuu has finished telling the team about his current dating problems. He’s hoping for advice, but of course they’re all useless. “I don’t… I don’t know what to say. I never imagined this day would come, but I’m literally speechless.” 

“You’re talking a lot for someone who’s speechless,” Kageyama notes grumpily.

“Don’t be mean, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, nudging him. 

Ryuu puts his head in his hands and groans. 

Ryuu doesn’t really know how to date a boy and he’s sure he’s fucking up a lot. He tries to do the things he did with his girlfriends, but Nagisa doesn’t react the way they did. He tries to hold hands while walking Nagisa home only once, because when he tries Nagisa practically leaps into the street to avoid him and stares at him with huge eyes. 

And he can’t buy Nagisa bows to put in his hair, despite Tsukishima’s laughing suggestion when he, despite knowing better, asks the team for help. 

(Tsukishima grudgingly apologizes to him later after Yamaguchi yells at him and then refuses to talk to him for three days.) 

“Buy him pork buns and play video games,” Coach Ukai suggests, apparently finally tiring of their increasingly ridiculous suggestions. “Be his friend. Can we get back to practice now?” 

Ryuu follows that suggestion with relief. He’s pleased when it seems to work. 

They’re nice enough when Nagisa shows up to cheer them on during a practice game against Aoba Johsai though. He’s clearly nervous, and he asks Ryuu several times if he’s sure it’s okay. 

“Yes, of course,” Ryuu says, puzzled. “All my girlfriends—not that you’re a girl, but, I mean, the people we’re dating always show up for our games! Knowing that you’re there, cheering us on, makes us do our best to win!” He decides not to mention that at most that has been six people.

Nagisa sits with Kageyama’s libero and he does cheer whenever she does, although not quite as loudly. But that’s okay, Nagisa isn’t a loud person. He’s more like Itami than Aizawa, but not really like either of them.

He waves Nagisa down to introduce him to the team, and Hinata jumps on Ryuu’s back and regards Nagisa with curious eyes. Noya is peering at him with equal curiosity, Yamaguchi seems nervous for some reason, Kageyama quietly links little fingers with his libero, and Ennoshita hovers near by, frowning. Tsukishima hangs back, ordering the first years to clean up. Narita and Kinoshita are off making nice/mocking the losing team. This is the most interest any of them has ever shown in any of his dates, including Itami. 

“Guys, this is Nagisa. Nagisa, these are the guys!” Ryuu says. He’s hoping Nagisa isn’t going to run away. He likes Nagisa and after dating him for a month he’s realized that Nagisa doesn’t have a lot of friends. Once they break up, Ryuu’s hoping they can stay friends, like he is with Aizawa. But that’s not going to happen if his friends scare him away. 

Nagisa stutters out a “nice to meet you” and bows. When he straightens again, his eyes are anxious. 

“He’s pretty!” Hinata says. “You’re pretty,” he adds to Nagisa. “But not like a girl at all.” 

“Um,” Nagisa says. His eyes flicker nervously to Ryuu who nods encouragingly. “Thanks?”

“What’s it like dating Tanaka?” Noya asks, grinning, and Ryuu glares at him. “What? I’m just asking!”

“Nice? He’s, um, really nice,” Nagisa says. He stutters a lot more when they’re among other people than when they’re on their own. “A really good boyfriend. I think he’s… Yeah.” 

Ryuu sticks his tongue out to Noya, Noya makes a face back at him, and Nagisa chokes down a laugh that makes Ryuu really happy to hear. 

Nagisa gamely answers a couple more dumb questions before Ennoshita puts his foot down and sends them all to the showers. 

“That was okay, wasn’t it?” Ryuu asks. He’s staying behind but he thinks Ennoshita is okay with it. “I know they can be a little much, but they’re good guys, really.” 

Nagisa nods. “It was… They were nice. And, and, Mizutani explained what was going on during the match, too, so I understood it. You were really good,” he adds. 

Ryuu preens. He does like this part of dating a lot. He knows he’s good at volleyball, but he likes being told it too. “Thanks! I tried harder because I knew you were there watching!” And it’s both true and something he’s told all his girlfriends, but none of them had flushed and stared at him in round eyed wonder the way Nagisa does. 

He does have to go shower though, and meet up with the rest of the team for a victory dinner (pork buns), so he says goodbye. Just as he’s about to exit the gym, Nagisa catches up to him again, grabs his hand and, blushing furiously, leans up to give Ryuu a kiss on the cheek. It just a quick, dry brush of lips, but it leaves Ryuu grinning widely, even though Nagisa immediately runs away. 

 

“Ha!” Aizawa says. She’s sitting crosslegged on the floor, eating some kind of sugary cereal. “You like him! That’s adorable!” 

“You think?” Ryuu is supposed to be doing math homework, but Ennoshita is going to be very disappointed, because so far he’s mostly been telling Aizawa all about Nagisa over Skype. 

“Yeah. You wanna kiss him, don’t you? Hold his hand, be disgustingly schmoopy, all that?” 

Ryuu thinks about it. He’s been so concerned about acting like a good boyfriend until Nagisa breaks up with him, he hasn’t really thought about whether he wants to date Nagisa in the first place. “I think I do,” he says, surprised. “Huh.”

Aizawa grins at him. “Well, at least you know your team mates are okay with it.” 

“What?” Ryuu gives her a confused look. 

Aizawa raises her eyebrows. “You know, you being gay?” 

“I’m not gay,” Ryuu says. He’s sure about that. He still likes girls. “But I guess I’m not straight either.” 

“Well, whatever you are.” Aizawa shrugs, unconcerned. “They’re okay with you dating a guy, so you don’t have to worry about that.” 

Of course that’s when Ryuu does start worrying about that. He hadn’t even given it a thought before. He’s not stupid; He knows that being gay in a small town in Japan isn’t all rainbows and sparkles, but it hadn’t really been something that concerned him before. 

“Hey, Noya!” he shouts, speeding up to run besides his best friend, who slows down to let him catch up. “You don’t care if I want to kiss boys, right?”

Noya gives him a baffled look. “No?”

“And you like Nagisa, right?”

“Yes? Wait, did anybody say anything? Because you know I’ll fight them with you!” Noya slows down to a walk and clenches his fists like he’s ready to go fight imaginary assholes right away. Noya is the best. 

“No, nobody’s said anything, I just wanted to make sure.” 

He has a similar conversation with Saeko that ends with her cuffing him upside the head, and after that he’s okay again. His sister and Noya are the two most important people in his life, and if they don’t care, then he’s not worried about anybody else. 

 

While walking home a couple of days later, Ryuu feels a soft touch on his hand and he looks down to see Nagisa’s hand touching his. He links their hands together and grins widely. Nagisa smiles back even though his eyes are scared. 

 

It takes a while for Nagisa to stop looking scared whenever they do anything vaguely couple-y in public, but he will happily cuddle in private and in front of the team (though never when Coach Ukai or Take-chan is around). Ryuu likes it a lot. Hugging Nagisa feels different from hugging anybody else and he wants to do as much of it as he can. 

“Do you have to?” Tsukishima complains mildly. “My teeth are aching just looking at you. Look at Kageyama — he’s not being disgusting.” He nods towards Kageyama and his libero who have their heads together and are going over volleyball tactics. 

Kageyama looks up, confused. 

“Sorry,” Nagisa says, and he starts trying to move out of Ryuu’s lap, but Ryuu clings on. They’re all crowded into Ennoshita’s living room for social bonding night. Ennoshita is still refusing to talk about whatever he’s got going on, but Nagisa, and Kageyama’s libero, and middle school girlfriend are all here.

“Don’t listen to him. He’s just being an ass because he has a piece of coal where his heart should be.” 

Tsukishima tilts his head back and looks down his nose at them. He’s unfairly good at that, even when he’s sitting down. “Just because—“ he starts, and breaks off, startled, when Yamaguchi slams his fist into his shoulder.

“Apologize!” Yamaguchi snaps out. He looks genuinely angry with Tsukishima, which is rare for him. 

“What?” 

“It’s okay,” Nagisa says, placating. He tries to move again and this time Ryuu lets him. Nagisa doesn’t move far away, just next to him instead of in his lap. “He doesn’t have to. It’s okay. I don’t… I don’t want to make you guys uncomfortable. So, um. We won’t do that anymore.” 

Ryuu makes a wordless sound of protest. 

Tsukishima looks at Yamaguchi, who’s scowling, then at Nagisa, who’s biting his lip. He sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says, and actually sounds like he means it. “It’s not your fault I have a piece of coal for a heart —“ Ryuu grins at that. “—Please, keep being as couple-y as you like.” 

Yamaguchi keeps scowling. 

“What? I apologized!” 

The two of them stare at each other, then Tsukishima sighs again, gets on his feet and drags Yamaguchi away to Ennoshita’s kitchen to have a very low conversation that not even Ryuu can listen in to. Anyway, he’s more concerned about the way Nagisa is still biting his lip and looking around like he’s expecting them to turn on him. Ryuu is sure Tsukishima hadn’t meant anything by it — he’d just been his usual disagreeable self — but Nagisa doesn’t know Tsukishima the way Ryuu does, and Nagisa worries in ways Ryuu never does. 

Ennoshita comes over to talk to them, and by the end of the night Ryuu has managed to get Nagisa in his lap again. 

 

He breaks up with Nagisa before he graduates, because it’s not fair to him when Ryuu is moving away to go to university. He owes Ennoshita for even passing the entrance exams, but he did, and he can’t not go to university. Saeko wouldn’t say anything, but he knows she’d be disappointed. So he’s going, and he’s excited, but. 

It hurts breaking up with Nagisa, and it hurts even more knowing that he’s hurt Nagisa. 

He’s quiet at the volleyball farewell dinner. The guys mostly let him be, only turning to him to get his input in “do you remember when…?” stories. It hurts leaving the guys behind too. At least Ennoshita is going to the same university, and there’s no way he’s losing touch with Noya, but it’s weird that he’ll never play with these guys again for Karasuno. 

It’s sad. He wants to cry, and he wants to call Nagisa, and he wants to just… not graduate. Which is impossible, so he just sits there like a lump. 

Late into the night, Yamaguchi slides into the seat next to him. “Don’t worry,” he says, voice low. “I’ll look after him. I won’t let anybody do anything, I promise.” 

Ryuu frowns at him in confusion. 

“Nagisa,” Yamaguchi clarifies. He blushes a little, but he seems so sure of himself these days. Ryuu can hardly remember the days when he just thought of Yamaguchi as Tsukishima’s shadow. “I won’t let anything happen to him.” 

“Why…?” He can’t help asking, because he and Yamaguchi have never been close. 

“I’m not really ready to tell anybody, but…” Yamaguchi looks away. Ryuu follows his glance and realizes that he’s looking at Tsukishima who’s talking to Narita. “I guess… I’m gay too. So, yeah, I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Oh. You and Tsukishima—“

Yamaguchi shakes his head quickly. “No! No, just me. But he’ll help, you know, if necessary. Tsukki’s good at bullies.” 

Ryuu does feel a bit better after that. Still sad, but less worried now that he knows that Nagisa is going to be fine. 

 

Abe Chiharu is honestly a rebound girlfriend, but they’re both aware of it, so it’s fine. 

The first day of university he sits down next to a girl with short brown hair and glasses and she smiles when he asks if he’s in the right lecture hall. She’s funny and smart, and he likes her. She has no interest in volleyball though, which is a problem, because he’s playing for the university team. 

Ennoshita isn’t. “I’m not good enough,” he says. “Anyway, it’s not what I want to do with my life, so it’s fine.” He’ll come to the games though, so even though it’s not the same as having a girlfriend or Nagisa there, Ryuu at least has somebody there cheering for him. Saeko comes too, when she can, but that’s different. 

Mostly he studies together with Abe, and sometimes they kiss. It’s nice, but neither of them are interested in taking it further.

“I don’t know,” he says. Noya got drafted by a different university — of course Noya got drafted — so now he’s got Skype dates with him as well as Aizawa, who’s studying abroad. “Like, she’s really cute and smart and everything, but I don’t know.” 

Noya shrugs. “Break up with her,” is his advice. “Don’t date somebody just to date somebody. If you’re not even having sex, what’s the point?”

“ _Nishinoya Yuu_!”

“What?” Noya grins. He’d apparently lost his virginity exactly twelve hours after setting foot on campus. Ryuu is both impressed and a little horrified. “I’m just saying.” 

“Well, don’t.” 

Ryuu decides that Noya is right though — about the dating just to date part, not the sex — and breaks up with Abe. 

She just nods. “Okay. Do you still want to meet up to study for the next test?”

“Oh god, yes.” 

 

“Tanaka!” Futakuchi yells, loud enough for the entire locker room to hear. “Your boyfriend is here!”

“Eh?” Ryuu is pretty sure he hasn’t got a boyfriend. He looks towards the doorway, half expecting Nagisa, but instead it’s Ennoshita, who’s rolling his eyes. “Oh, hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing. I just thought we’d go for food before studying.” 

“Sure.” Ryuu is down with that. “Sushi?” 

Ennoshita shrugs. “Whatever.” 

They go to the sushi train place closest to campus, which is coincidentally also the cheapest and the place with the prettiest cashiers. Ryuu thinks he’s getting better at flirting with the girl with purple hair, even if Ennoshita always laughs at him after. 

“I can’t believe you said that her mole looks like an octopus,” Ennoshita says. He looks sleepily amused, which probably means that internally he’s in hysterics. 

Ryuu shoves him a little. He’s still red even though it’s been five minutes, and Purple Hair Girl hadn’t seemed insulted, just really baffled. Still. Embarrassing. “I meant a cute one! A cute little happy octopus!” 

“You really need to work on your compliments,” Ennoshita says. 

Ryuu makes a face at him. 

 

He doesn’t date anybody for the rest of the semester, but between Abe and Ennoshita, his grades are solid. Saeko is so proud she turns red and punches him in stomach when she sees them. Then they both have to look hard at the ceiling for a while to avoid bursting into embarrassing tears. 

He’s not a starter for the team (yet) but he does get some time on the court, so it’s good. He decides he likes university. 

“Good to know,” Ennoshita says. “But that’s not actually your line.”

“Oh, sorry.” He looks down at the exasperated blonde he’s supposed to be menacing. “Sorry,” he repeats. 

“Just do it right this time,” she sighs. 

It takes them five tries, but Ennoshita declares himself satisfied before the sun sets and the light vanishes. Ennoshita thanks his crew, while Ryuu loiters idly, then they’re walking home. He’s been promised food for his performance and he intends to get it. 

“So you like university, huh?” Ennoshita says. 

Ryuu nods. “I do. I mean, I miss everybody, but this is good too. I’ve got you, and Abe, and the team here…” He shrugs. “It’s all right.” 

“I know what you mean.” 

These days Ryuu’s life consists of practice, lectures, studying with Abe or Ennoshita, more practice, food with Ennoshita, more studying, staring in one of Ennoshita’s movies, more practice, quivering to get on the court and play a match, Skype dates with Noya and Aizawa, catch up dinners with Saeko, and more studying.

It’s a tight schedule, but he likes it. Noya thinks he studies too much, and should party more, but Noya hasn’t got Ennoshita standing over him, and a sister who won’t be disappointed if his grades drop, and will be sure to assure him that she’s not disappointed. Saeko might be wild like Noya, but she’s smart, much smarter than Ryuu is, and she knows it. He knows it too, and he knows Saeko genuinely will be happy whatever he does. He could probably join the actual yakuza, and she’d still stand by him. But he also knows that she’s extra proud when he _tries_ whether it’s at volleyball or at school and he wants to make her proud. 

Noya probably would understand if he explained it, but Ryuu doesn’t mind pretending to be a serious minded student who’s shocked at all the crazy stuff Noya gets up to. He has no idea how Noya even finds the time. 

Abe has made a schedule for him, and he’s got it pinned to the fridge. It’s color coded and pretty, and it has everything Ryuu needs to do every week, including laundry and grocery shopping. Ennoshita laughs the first time he sees it. 

“You look like such a delinquent,” he says, tapping his finger against the schedule. “But you’re really, really not.” 

Ryuu shrugs. “It’s the only way I remember to do everything. Like, I forgot to buy toilet paper earlier and that was. Awkward. This is a lot better.” He grins and nudges Ennoshita’s finger over to Thursday nights. “Look! It’s you!” 

“You’ve added me to your weekly schedule?” Ennoshita looks more surprised than he should. He has to know they’ve been spending almost every Thursday night together since the semester started up again, right? He’s got their lunches and study sessions there as well, but they’re not blocked out with Ennoshita’s name the way Thursdays are.

“Yeah. That’s okay, isn’t it?” Ryuu is suddenly uncertain. He’s not sure why Ennoshita is so surprised. 

“Yes. Of course. I just didn’t… It looks different, written out like that.” 

Ennoshita looks thoughtful when he leaves. 

 

Ennoshita Chikara kisses him two days later, and just like that he’s got a boyfriend again. 

He’s happy. A little surprised, but happy, and hey, he already knows what Ennoshita likes to do, so he’s definitely going to be an awesome boyfriend this time.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually set out to write all het, but then Nagisa happened and, well. here we are.
> 
> Next time! All straight characters for sure! (I'm lying. That is a lie.)


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